Surfers Against Sewage SUP Challenge Blog

Hurry up and wait

We are still waiting to hear whether we are going to get the go today for crossing the English Channel by stand up paddle board tomorrow (Tuesday 22nd June). The concerns of the team last week have been realised as the wind looks like it will shift from Northerly to Southerly tomorrow meaning it will be in our faces so we are 50/50 as to whether it is worth an attempt. Trying to convey, across a phone, how a downwinder on a SUP board works has been pretty frustrating. Our main friend has been http://www.xcweather.co.uk which is has proved accurate and an excellent resource.

SAS Crossing - Advice from Laird Hamilton

Well the training had a bit of a bump at the end of February, up until then it was going really well, if a little boring, due to the amount of time spent in the gym. I had lined up a series of 5km running races in February and March at least give me some motivation to keep going, these went pretty well all things considered, I certainly thrashed myself, but I did not beat my personal best that I achieved four years ago, still I was please with completing the races in around 19 minutes.

Surfers Against Sewage Challenge Prize Draw

Matt Argyle, Simon Bassett, Claire Blacklock, Elliot Dudley and Jock Patterson are attempting to cross the English channel on stand up paddle boards to raise money for Surfers Against Sewage. We are holding a prize draw to raise money, prizes have been provided by all the riders and their sponsors (Animal, 2XS and X-Train, Naish and Roxy). We have over 20 prizes to give away check out our prize list.

So how do you stand a chance of winning some of this lovely stuff ? If you wish to enter each 'ticket' for the draw costs £5, you can enter as many times as you want. Winners will be randomly drawn.

SAS Challenge 2010 Fitness testing results

Well the verdict is in and the tests are over, well for me and Claire they are anyway. Simon and Jock are yet to be tested. As part of the build up to the stand up paddle across the English Channel John Kelly from the University of Chichester put myself and Claire through a couple of tests to get a verdict on our current level of fitness and in turn that gave us a good idea of how much work we need to do over the coming months.

Surfers Against Sewage Paddle Across the English Channel

The cat is out of the bag, myself (Matt Argyle), Jock Patterson, Elliot Dudley, Simon Bassett and Claire Blacklock are stand up paddling across the English Channel on a day between 18th - 25th June 2010, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world (so busy that they have a motorway system in place where ships on one side travel one way and the other side travel the other). The distance as the crow flies is 21 miles, however the actual distance will be much more are we weave our way across to France.